Anne Chlovechok The Daily Jeffersonian Back in July 1931, two recent immigrants to the United States named James Siatras and Gust Granitsas leased a space on Wheeling Avenue in the S.H. Esely Building for the purpose of opening a lunch room. They named their eatery Coney Island and planned to sell "all kinds of short orders." The business was a success, satisfying customers with tasty hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, soup, pies and plated lunches. Following prohibition in the 1930s, Coney Island received the first liquor license in Guernsey County. In the 1940s, Granitsas bought the building housing Coney Island and the former Gander Shoe store. He converted part of the upstairs into an apartment for his family. In 1953, Granitsas and Siatras retired. Granitsas' share of the business went to his son, Jim Granitsas, a local attorney, while Siatras' share was purchased by George Grispos.

In 1955, Jim Granitsas bought Grispos's share, and became the sole proprietor of the restaurant. Granitsas hired a manager to run the restaurant and the bar he opened in the back of the former Gander Shoe store. While the restaurant was doing very well, so was his law practice. In the early 1960s, Granitsas asked his sister, Themi Theodosopoulos, and her husband, Nick, formerly a chemical engineer with DuPont, to help him run the business. Ready to stop traveling the country for DuPont and settle down near family, they agreed. In 1963 they became full partners, and in 1970, with Granitsas's law firm thriving, the Theodosopoulos couple bought him out and became full owners of Coney Island.

Nick and Themi Theodosopoulos have five children; Alex, Steve, Manny, Jeanie and Anna Maria. "All of us kids grew up working in the business," said Steve Theodosopoulos, co-owner with his brother, Alex, of Theo's Restaurant, formerly Coney Island. "From the time we were 9 or 10 we did every job there is to do in a restaurant, from cleaning up to making pies," he said. "And we all swore we'd never do it for a living!" "Yet all five of us are in the restaurant business in some way now," said Alex Theodosopoulos. "When we got away from it we realized how much we loved it and came back on our own terms," Steve said. All five Theodosopoulos siblings attended college, four majoring in business, and one, Jeanie, majoring in communications. She eventually decided she'd like to become a chef and moved to Paris to attend the prestigious Le Notre cooking school, where she met her future husband, Gilles. Flashback to 1981 when Theo's was still known as Coney Island and operated by Nick and Themi Theodosopoulos. In that year the restaurant celebrated its 50th anniversary, recreating the original 1931 menu and serving more than 2,000 customers in one day.

In 1985, major change was thrust upon the business when an employee, following his shift, went down to the basement of the restaurant and set a fire while the business was open upstairs, full of people, including those in the apartments above. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the hundred-year-old building was completely destroyed with only a bit of the front wall left standing. The arsonist went to prison and the Theodosopouloses decided to rebuild. They made the new building bigger and better, with banquet facilities for 200 people on the second floor. And they began an off-site catering business as well. "The fire seemed devastating at the time," Steve said, "but in the end it was probably a godsend. Everything turned out really well and my parents opened the new building almost a year to the day after the fire." The new building includes brick walls made with bricks salvaged from the old building. "We picked those bricks out of the wreckage ourselves," Alex said. "It seems that's all we did for days!" Shortly after reopening the restaurant in the new building the family realized that its business had expanded beyond what it used to be and the name Coney Island no longer fit. "We had a much larger menu," Steve said, "And the name Coney Island seemed to make you think about hot dogs. It no longer reflected who we were. So we changed the name to Theo's. Within a very shot time, business exploded. Soon the family was thinking about expanding and after carefully researching the market, decided to lease the Becky Thatcher river boat in Marietta for use as a restaurant. Manny and Steve relocated to Marietta to head up that operation, leaving Alex and Nick in charge of Theo's.

In 1995, they decided to expand again, and purchased Ted's Tivoli Palace on Southgate Parkway, changing the name to The Forum. Alex took the helm there, with Nick and Anna Maria running Theo's and Steve and Manny in Marietta. In 1998, Manny decided he needed a break from the restaurant business and went to Columbus to pursue other options, and the family sold the rights to the Becky Thatcher. Steve came back to Cambridge and took the helm at Theo's, as his father was ready to retire and his sister Anna Maria had decided to relocate to Phoenix to work in the restaurant industry, which is where their sister Jeanie opened a restaurant with her husband. Alex and Steve bought Theo's from Nick and Themi, and decided to leave Steve in charge there with Alex in charge at The Forum. "We have different menus," Steve said. "We don't want to compete with each other. And we have confidence in each other, so we've found out it works best with one of us running each restaurant, since we're most familiar with the place we spend most of our time."

In 2003, Theo's started aggressively expanding its catering business, and in 2006, Manny decided to return to the area and to rejoin his brothers in the restaurant business. "We'd grown to the point where I really needed help," Steve said. "So I asked him to come back and he agreed. Now he runs Theo's with me." In 2007, the family tore down the building to the east of Theo's; the former site of Sally O' Sweets. They expanded the restaurant into that site, including an outdoor patio, all of which has done very well.

In 2009, Alex proposed expanding The Forum, which had remained essentially the same as when they had purchased it. In fact, it hadn't been changed much since it was built in the mid-1980s. They retained the services of Bi-Con Services, which they said did a tremendous job of completing the job well and on time. The 2011 expansion includes a new bar area, some improvements in the kitchen, completely new bathrooms and a total overhaul of the interior to update it and give it a more Mediterranean flavor. "We're planning on adding more Greek items to the menu this spring and summer," Alex said. The family is considering further expansions in the future, with the possibility of new restaurants, though they have not decided yet where these will be located. Of primary importance to the Theodosopoulos family is the opportunity to continue serving the community, and the privilege of doing so together. "Partnerships can be hard," Alex said. "And partnerships in families can be harder, since you have all that family baggage. But our family is close. We can fight it out and yell at each other about something today, and tomorrow it'll be forgotten and everything is OK." "We're thankful for that relationship," Steve said. "And to the community for supporting us for almost 80 years. We couldn't be here without them!" achlovechok@daily-jeff.com